[Coming up with ten plausible Wolverine replacements in an hour and a half is substantially beyond my powers, so I’ve turned to the mighty BFF writing team to provide a few pitches. Should you wish to know who to berate on Twitter for their decision, the odd-numbered submissions are all named. – Ed.]

 

#10 – Danny DeVito

Let’s start off by going back to basics. Danny DeVito is the Wolverine of the comics made flesh – he’s short, dark, stocky and filled to the brim with wisecracks. In fact, we’d like Danny DeVito to work back through his entire oeuvre and remake all his films with the addition of the Wolverine claws. Miss Trunchbull unhappy with her second-hand car? Cut her stupid thick legs in half. Batman sniffing around the Cobblepot empire? Unleash the FlipperClaw™! And when that bloody Twins sequel gets made next year he can just turn Eddie Murphy into Norbert carpaccio.

 

#9 – Steven Tyler

Films make sod-all money these days so producers need to scrimp and save where they can, and hell, if that means hiring someone with already massive claw-like fingers (seriously, watch the first ten seconds of that video) to play someone with massive claw-like fingers then so be it. So what if his acting ability is unproven – it’s a comic book film, so really, how hard can it be? “Hey Steven, do a bit of roaring and wave your hands around you lanky fingered freak”, “What, like this? Raawrrr”, “Yeah, that’s absolutely fine.”

– Harry Harris

 

#8 – Karl Urban

One of the few actors to provoke debate rather than widespread acclaim/giggles when this topic was broached in our secret meeting room, Karl Urban has spent the past decade and a bit consistently making crap action films watchable and good action films great. Sarah liked the thought of going with another Australian actor, while Paddy praised his sneer (as demonstrated in Dredd) and pointed out that he’s actually from New Zealand – a country home to generations of stocky, pugnacious warriors with a nice line in scary dances. Not a bad idea, is it?

 

#7 – Elijah Wood

Ok, so less Wolverine and more rat-faced weasel, but Elijah Wood has a lot of the credentials to take over from meat-machine Jackman. He’s proven he’s good being short and hairy, he’s definitely got a mean psycho killer streak and he’s good at brooding over stuff. That’s pretty much Wolverine’s psyche in a nutshell. Don’t think Elijah is man enough to do it? Hugh Jackman started off in musical theatre – just saying…

– Hannah Lane

 

#6 – Craig Ferguson

This might entail a bit of backstory-tweaking, but stick with me. How much of a change would it REALLY be to move Logan’s origins from Nova Scotia to… Olda Scotia? Oppressed by the English all his life, young Logan finally comes into his full powers when a sneering colonial twazzock enters his humble mud-and-porridge hovel intent on banging his mum. With an Englishman’s blood on his claws and nothing to his name but a fearsome scowl and an impenetrable accent, he sets sail for the New World – where, with luck, nobody will think to point out that he looks a bit like a haggis.

 

#5 – Alan Rickman

Yeah, yeah that’s right. Like, how many more of these Wolverine films can there be anyway? Here you’ve got Wolverine: The Retirement Years, where’s he’s still got the punch just with a little less physical dexterity. But here’s our superhero: wizened, still a little grumpy and rough around the edges. There are stories in those eyes. Stories of samurais and wizards. Oh, wait, wrong film. He might not impress you with his pecs but he’d weaken you with his voice like chocolate and those metal claw hand-things (that’d have rusted a little – n’aww). And he’d look good with more hair. Like, any man looks good with more hair. But Alan Rickman especially.

– Carlotta Eden

 

#4 – Corey Haim

Harry suggested Corey Feldman, but he’s old news – why not go a bit Marvel Zombies (it’s a comic, we haven’t read it) and dig up Corey Haim? All you’d need to do is wrap his joints in a bit of copper wire and then control him with magnets – it’d actually be quite a nice, metallic vibe for Logan, plus there’s no way Corey would be as bad an actor dead as he was alive. And what’s the best thing about corpses, everyone? THEY CAN’T BRING METH ON SET.

 

#3 – Mads Mikkelsen

If you’re anything like me, you want Mads Mikkelson to play everything. “But Mads Mikkelson can’t play Wolverine, he’s a dapper gent who does all his murdering discreetly!” you say. Well, good luck to you, you’re an idiot. If you don’t think Mads can merk several dudes at once, watch the above clip from Valhalla Rising where Mads merks several dudes at once. And disembowels someone.

If it’s not obvious by this point, I’m holding out for a hard R.

– Duncan Vicat-Brown

 

#2 – Kanye West

Kanye West has repeatedly demonstrated that there are no limits to either his genius or his narcissism. He’s clearly not going to be satisfied with a villain role, so why not throw him front and centre and let him get all that Messiah-complexing out of his system? Not only would Kanye’s casting save on prop and special effects costs (you KNOW he’d go ahead and get himself fitted with real claws), but getting mercilessly beaten down by Magneto might whip his ego back to a level where he’s willing to actually learn his lines. And there’s no better apprenticeship for shagging the Phoenix than going a few rounds with Kim Kardashian, whose entire abdomen is so alive with STIs that it’s hotter than the Sun.

 

Well, we’ve all done our best – but there was only ever one person qualified to really call this one. Step forward Jackman superfan Vincent Kenny (he made his own claws out of tinfoil and coat hangers, you know), and put us out of our misery…

#1 – Kiefer Sutherland

As the resident fan-cum-pervert of Hugh “The Jacked Man” Jackman, I was personally appalled to see that his incredible tenure as Wolverine is coming to an end. The character will never be played by a more perfect and robustly-homoerotic actor, but since we have the opportunity, why don’t we give Kiefer Sutherland a go?

Stick with me here: the Kief has everything you’d want in Logan; gravelly voice, barrel chest, versatile acting range (everything from mildly-vexed to vein-popping spine-crushing knives-are-poking-out-of-my-ruddy-bones fury).

Sutherland has recently displaced the voice actor David Hayter as the vocal scion of Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid to many forlorn cries. If you’ll give old IMDb a gander, you’ll see that David Hayter was the writer of X-Men and X2, meaning that Kiefer Sutherland now has a history of replacing people related to the X-Universe. It’s meant to be!

Perhaps the greatest asset Keifer Sutherland has going for him as far as Wolverine is concerned is that he’s actually Canadian. Logan was one of the first proudly-Canadian superheroes, and it would be nice to see the role back in the hands of those hockey-playing maple-syrup-drinking dog-sled-riding lumberjacks, eh?

– Vincent Kenny

 

Who do you want to see take over as Logan? It’s Taylor Lautner, isn’t it? God, the world’s awful.